It happens like this.


It’s the middle of the night. All would be quiet, for the world is sleeping, if not for the ticking of the clock and the whirlwind of thoughts in your head. Here, in this dark solitude, there is nothing to protect you from yourself. You try to stop the growing storm within you, but it is too late. It is growing on its own now, building on itself, beyond your control, so that finally you must stop fighting it, and it comes. Bursting from your innermost self, the truth you smother so easily in your everyday life is set free once again by the darkness you cannot escape. Always when you least expect it, when you think you have left it behind, it returns, for this demon is within, and cannot be outrun. Your very soul pours out before you, pooling around you, and your tears join it. Only when there is nothing left does the darkness have mercy, and you pass once again into a dreamless sleep. The clock ticks on.